WFS

Web Feature Server (WFS) is an OGC open standard to provide raw vector data. Feature information that is encoded and transported using WFS includes both feature geometry and feature attribute values. GeoServer allows you to share your geospatial data in this standard and lets the client choose among several formats. Output formats include GML2, GML3, ShapeFile, JSON, and CSV.

In this section, you can change, as usual, the service metadata. You can limit the Maximum number of features returned by GeoServer for each request. The default value is very high; you may consider reducing it. Consider the following screenshot:

GeoServer is compliant with the full Transactional Web Feature Server (WFS-T) level of service, as defined by the OGC. Using WFS-T, clients may create transactions to edit data. You can select which level should be exposed by your server. By default the complete level is configured, that is, support for LockFeature is supported by the suite of transactional level operations. If you don't need or want your clients editing the data, set the option to Basic. This is shown in the following screenshot: